After an Office Gaffe, Several Ways to Say You’re Sorry

As the new year approaches – and with it the inevitable wave of self-improvement plans–we’ve identified 10 strategies for advancing your career in 2013. From recovering from an office blunder to learning why it doesn’t pay to be Mr. (or Ms.) Nice Guy, this ten-point plan will offer daily tips on what to do and how to do it.

When a verbal gaffe slips out in the office, there’s more at stake than a little personal embarrassment: your reputation and career could be on the line. But don’t immediately start updating your resume, executive coaches say. Most faux pas can be made right.

The first rule: apologize, and fast.

The apology needs to be direct and the offender should take full responsibility, says Marilyn Puder-York, Ph.D., a psychologist and executive coach.

It should convey: “I recognize what I did was inappropriate, I recognize it had impact I didn’t intend, no one is blaming the universe or a bad night’s sleep,” she says.

And if you made the gaffe in public, your mea culpa should also be public, experts say. (This is common sense advice for politicians standing in front of open mics, everywhere.) Just make sure the apology is sincere.

Sissy DeMaria, president of Miami-based public relations firm Kreps DeMaria, points to remarks by ex-BP CEO Tony Hayward as an example of an apology that was perceived as an even bigger verbal mistake. In attempting an apology for the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, he (now infamously) said “I’d like my life back.”

Another tip: make the apology fit the crime, and the circumstances.

Margaret Morford, owner of The HR Edge, a management consulting company, recalls a manager who went to the company’s CEO to alert him to an employee’s underperformance, only to find out the employee was also the CEO’s daughter.

Morford advised the manager to ignore it and never mention it again. Morford made that call because the CEO already knew his daughter had some performance issues. To bring it up again, Morford suggested, would only embarrass him further.

Whether a verbal slip-up is survivable can depend on the culture of the office, the rank and popularity of the person you’ve offended, or whether the gaffe is culturally insensitive, says Puder-York.

There’s nothing wrong with repeating an apology for good measure (“I’m even more mortified today than I was yesterday”), but don’t keep revisiting the mistake, says Paul Hellman, founder of Express Potential, a consulting firm focused on executive communication skills.

After all, he says, “you are the main character in your story. But you’re a minor character in everyone else’s story.”

Last, if you’ve done something that results in only your ego being bruised, like crying in a meeting, experts say ignore it and move on. Apologizing just draws more attention to the mistake.

People have a tendency to “catastrophize,” notes Hellman. If you immediately tender your resignation after saying something humiliating, he says, you’ll never know what would have happened had you apologized and waited it out.

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Written and edited by The Wall Street Journal’s Management & Careers group, At Work covers life on the job, from getting ahead to managing staff to finding passion and purpose in the office. Tips, questions? email us.